A novel general purpose data acquisition board with a DIM interface

A new general purpose data acquisition and control board (Board51) is presented in this paper. Board51 has primarily been developed for use in the ALICE experiment at CERN, but its open design allows for a wide use in any application requiring flexible and affordable data acquisition system. It provides analog I/O functionalities and is equipped with software bundle, allowing for easy integration into the SCADA. Based on the Silicon Labs C8051F350 MCU, the board features a fully-differential 24-bit ADC that provides an ability to perform very precise DAQ at sampling rate up to 1kHz. For analog outputs two 8-bit current-mode DACs can be used. Board51 is equipped with UART to USB interface that allows communication with any computer platform. As a result the board can be controlled through the DIM system. This is provided by a program running on a computer publishing services that include measured analog values of each ADC channel and accepts commands for setting ADC readout rate and DACs voltage. Digital inputs/outputs are also accessible using the DIM communication system. These services enable any computer on a common network to read measured values and control the board.